Let's All Choose to Ignore This New Televised Awards Show

CBS is going to broadcast the Hollywood Film Awards starting next year. We don't need this.

According to Variety's Cynthia Littleton the network has made a deal that will allow the awards—which are not billed as a "competition" but rather a chance for stars to be honored—to show up on your TV every fall. The awards are self described as the "first stop of the awards season."

The Hollywood Film Awards have changed in recent years. When the awards happened this year, Pete Hammond wrote that the ceremony has been growing in clout. "The studios seem to love it because they essentially get to dictate the winners and plant a flag for one film or another early in the season," he wrote. "No one takes the actual award too seriously, but getting the opportunity to be seen holding that award is another thing altogether."

Still, there's really no reason this should be televised. The Hollywood Film Awards are essentially just a grand exercise in back-patting. All awards shows are, of course, so why don't we just keep the ones we already have, given that they have the advantages of history (the Oscars) and drunkenness (the Golden Globes). In fact, if they are televised, you might not get that many celebs to show up. At this year's ceremony, Hammond reported that Julia Roberts said the only reason her husband got her to show up was because "it’s not televised and I knew I won." In fact, some of the benefits of reading about this show is how casual it is. When televised, we may not even hear tales of bizarre Sean Penn speeches about his "neighbor" Roberts.

So honestly, we really should boycott watching the Hollywood Film Awards. Awards season is too long already.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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